Lu’an Group, a large Shanxi-based coal producer, completed what was according to state newsletter, People’s Daily Online, China’s first manned test of an underground refuge chamber on April 10. A team of 80 miners, rescue workers and researchers stayed in a permanent refuge chamber in the company’s Changcun coal mine for 48 hours.

The test refuge chamber was located in the North Third District of the Changcun mine. The chamber was built in May 2010 and was designed to sustain 80 to 100 people in case of disaster. It features explosion protection, an enclosed space, an air monitor, a carbon dioxide absorber, a temperature and humidity controller, supplies of power, oxygen, food, and water and communications equipment. Trapped miners can obtain fresh air, liquid food and electricity from a rescue borehole extending to the ground. Jin Longzhe, designer of China’s first-generation mine rescue chambers and a professor at the University of Science and Technology Beijing, said that the feasibility and reliability of the permanent refuge chamber’s oxygen supply system has been tested, and the data derived from the real-time monitoring of multiple parameters inside the chamber has laid a technical foundation for further improvements to underground shelter facilities.

Liu Rensheng, general manager of Lu’an Group, said that after miners entered the refuge chamber, they were able to communicate with the ground control centre using an indoor communications systems and two-way video conversations in order to provide follow-up rescue workers with up tod ate information. “Whatever the investments are, they are worthwhile when it comes to the safety of workers,” he said. This system, jointly developed by Lu’an Group, Beijing University of Science and Technology and Beijing Zhongshengzhou Mining Technology Centre, will be applied in more Chinese mines in the future, according to the report.